Rajesh Naiksatam

Rajesh Naiksatam was born and raised in Mumbai, India. At age ten, while on the school playground, Rajesh was hit by a powerfully thrown but misguided javelin. By the grace of God, the javelin wobbled at the very last moment and lost its momentum, fortunately leaving Rajesh with nothing more than a half-inch-deep hip wound. Rajesh's late father, Shrikant Naiksatam, was one of the finest animators and visual effects artists India has ever produced. Shrikant wanted Rajesh to become a computer engineer, but Rajesh was more interested in following in his father's footsteps and joining the creative field. Eventually, Rajesh convinced Shrikant to let him work with him. While training with his father in animation and visual effects, Rajesh had the privilege of working with Prahlad Kakar, India's advertisement guru. Prahlad gave Rajesh an opportunity to direct his first stop-motion animation film for a commercial, which won an Advertising Club Award. Rajesh came to the United States to pursue a master's degree in computer graphics at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where one of his teachers was Chris Wedge, the director of the movie Ice Age. After graduating from SVA, Rajesh worked for Tony Ciao’s company Data Motion Arts in New York City, where part of his job was training interns. Visual effects artist John Kohn was one of his interns. A few months after John's internship ended, he went to Los Angeles for work and convinced Rajesh to also move there, inviting him to stay in his apartment until Rajesh found a job. Since then Rajesh has worked with several film studios, including Boss Films, Digital Domain, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Animation, DreamWorks, and Sony Pictures Imageworks. For Rajesh, the courage to face every challenging situation in his life to date came from that unforgettable javelin incident in his childhood.